[Multislice CT of the abdomen--current indications and future trends]

Multislice CT systems allow the simultaneous acquisition of multiple slices per gantry rotation. In combination with faster gantry rotation times of 0.5 seconds, the abdominal structures can be displayed in higher spatial and temporal resolution. In MS-CT of the liver it is possible to scan the entire organ with an optimal slice thickness of 2 - 3 mm within a defined perfusion phase in less than 10 seconds. This results in an improved detection and characterization of focal liver lesions. A high-quality, 3-dimensional reconstruction of the hepatic arterial and portalvenous system is obtained with the same data set. The diagnostic use of the simultaneously acquired perfusion data will lead to a better characterization of focal liver lesions in the future. The diagnostics of the pancreas also profits from MS-CT, especially for the detection of small tumors and the evaluation of resectability of a pancreatic carcinoma. All abdominal structures can be displayed in a coronal view without loss of image quality because of the almost isotropic voxels obtained. This proves to be beneficial for the preoperative diagnostics of renal cell carcinomas, especially if the tumor extension into adjacent organs (e. g., liver or spleen) in the longitudinal direction has to be evaluated. The multiplanar display and the sophisticated 3-dimensional reconstruction tools have a substantial value for the abdominal CT angiography. It proves to have a major diagnostic impact on acute abdominal aortic and visceral arterial diseases because even large distances in the z-direction can be covered with high spatial resolution.